


Genuine, High-Grade Lead

by yorkisms



Category: Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Between the end of the movie and the post-credits, Emotional Constipation, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death, Pre-Slash, Rated for Deadpool's Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-14 14:44:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21017489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkisms/pseuds/yorkisms
Summary: In classic Wade fashion, he keeps it with the lube stash. On nights that are far too long he takes it out and looks at it.(Heads, he did it for you. Tails, he did it for you.)A merc with a mouth, his timesliding frienemy, and a skeeball token with a bullet embedded in it.





	1. Heads

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea, what the hell, I am doing. 
> 
> But it's been a while since I posted anything at all, I had some thoughts poking at me about the symbolism of the token now with bullet and what it means from both Nate's side and Vanessa's so I scribbled the first few paragraphs of this down while I was at my actual job. Classy, I know.
> 
> I might do a part 2 with more Vanessa and possibly actually polyamory but that depends on how I feel, idk.
> 
> NOTES EDIT AS OF 2/16/2020: I do NOT consent to this work being ripped and posted to unofficial AO3 apps. AO3 has a good mobile web browser interface. If you want to interact with this fic somehow (eg official translations) then contact me using the information in the end notes or a comment. I know this fic is on some unofficial apps. **I was not asked, nor do I consent to this.**

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What if I could somehow, store good memories in clouds, and fly to touch the moon-_
> 
> (Heads, he did it for me.)

One would think- or, hopefully, they do think- that Wade had left the token behind. Cracked a joke towards Cable-  _ Nate- _ about the beat up old thing and left it. But truthfully, he didn’t. Sure, it had a bullet stuck in it now, but it was still Vanessa’s skeeball token. Now with more lead! 

In classic Wade fashion, he keeps it with the lube stash. On nights that are far too long he takes it out and looks at it. 

_ (Heads, he did it for you. Tails, he did it for you.) _

Nate wanders in and out of his life like an alleycat. An emotionally challenged alleycat. Something keeps him drifting right back to Wade. And when Wade looks at the bullet fused into the coin he wonders  _ why. _ What the hell does it matter to Nate. That’s the stuff of lazy writers trying to make a plot twist and hopeless shipper romantics. There’s no way anyone can seriously believe Nate did it for him.

“I did it for you.” 

“What the shitballs?” Wade startles of of his skeeball token midnight reverie, a physical jump. “How did you get in here? You do that every goddamn time! Why are you like a cybernetic cat?” 

“Not easily,” Nate says evasively, meaning he likes it too much to let Wade try to stop him. 

“Make yourself at fuckin’ home why don’t you?” Wade gripes as Nate sits down next to him on the shitty mattress that barely qualifies as a bed. Nate is enjoying himself far too much for either of them to be truly mad anyway. Nate looks at the token. 

“I thought you left it.” 

“No,” Wade has to admit. He turns it over once more. “Wait, when you fucking appeared out of nowhere like a silver foxy deus ex machina- no pun intended- did you seriously say that you did it for me? I was fucking joking when I said that, it’s fine, no need to bump my ego.” 

Nate looks like he definitely said something he wishes he didn’t say, because he has the emotional literacy of a fucking potato. He’s lucky he’s so hot. 

“Well...yes. It was a little self evident. I’ve been told I can lack subtlety.” 

Yes, because in the comics Nate just walked in to the UN and asked them for things when he fucking felt like it and Nate here and now is sharing a moment over a timeline where he just straight up killed Wade, and what part of that made him want to give up literally everything to save one shitty life? Not to mention the whole “trapped in the past” thing? Nate might bitch and complain about not being able to read Wade’s mind, well boo fucking hoo, one of them is more inscrutable than the other. Hint: his name starts with “N” and ends with “athan Summers!” 

Nate has a specific face when he’s thinking about how to say what he wants, because,again, he has the emotional literacy of a fucking potato. Or maybe a rock, because we have to go deeper with the metaphors. The point is, he’s making the “thinking because I’m bad at emotions” face. 

“Seeing someone else die for my anger other than the one I wanted to take it out on changed my mind. I couldn’t fucking live with myself.”

“Seriously? Killing a kid, nope, no remorse, bingo-bongo let’s do it, but you drew the fucking line at  _ me? _ Are you fucking high?” 

Nate rolls his eyes. “No, you’re just a fucking dipshit. I was being incredibly shitty. And that’s not worth dying for.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“But I also don’t regret it.” Nate looks at the crumpled bullet. He makes the emotion words loading face again. 

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if you came to ask if you can stay the night I’m not gonna wait five hours for you to string the words together,” Wade grumbles, tucking the token away. Nate sighs. 

“Getting right to business, I see.” 

Normally, when they share the bed, the next morning Nate is gone as suddenly as he previously came, no notice, much like an alleycat. 

But when Wade wakes up the next morning the shower is running and the skeeball token is on Nate’s side, a sticky note placed daintily underneath, bullet facing up. 

Wade has to hold the note close to his face to parse the words. Hard to read when you’re waking up. 

_ I thought she would want to see you live as much as I did.  _

Wade processes the words, holding every single one as if it’s the secret to life, before looking at the bathroom door. 

“Next time text, idiot!” Wade yells, but his voice cracks anyway. He can hear Nate laugh softly from the shower. 

Maybe he should buy the dumbshit a stack of post it notes. Maybe then he’ll finally get some idea what the hell goes on in Nate’s head. He needs a list.

_ Things that go on in Nate Summers’ head:  _

_ 1\. I want Wade Wilson to live.  _

Yeah. Nate’s a fucking enigma, if that’s the kind of thing that he’d give up everything else for. 

Wade likes that about him anyway.  
  



	2. Tails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _-and your hand, at the same time?_
> 
> (Tails, I did it for him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, this chapter is Just Nate Rights because I actually love writing him. And embellishing his movieverse Story. 
> 
> Anyway Heres Wonderwall

If there’s one thing Nate understands intimately, so much that it’s both a memory and a constant reminder, it’s  _ loss. _ He’s been mourning something for as long as he can remember. First it was his chance at having a normal relationship with his parents, before he even met them. He knows that they loved him, but that’s about all he knows. He knows many, many stories, sure, but before he returned to their time, it was only tales Nate suspects were idealized for his comfort. Real people aren’t that good. 

After his parents, it was just part of life. People die in the future- a lot. Especially in the line of work Nate was raised into. He lost plenty of people in his years- peers, caretakers, trainees, and he had mourned them all as best as one could in such a place. Feel, always remember, have to keep living. Have to. 

The loss that had broken him though, was that of Hope. Nate’s relationship with his wife, Aliya, was great in its own right, but it was just as much an  _ alliance _ , a necessity, as a love affair. Maybe more. (Definitely, more, towards the end. Fortunately, he does her the service of not acting as though neither of them know it.) But  _ Hope… _

God, Hope was his life. He still remembers kneeling in his own burnt-out home holding Hope’s bear. He knew, right then, that he would be told to grieve the way he always had, but he couldn’t. Not when he had just received the device that would catalyze his ultimate mission in the past. Go there. Prevent the catastrophes that plagued his world. Go home. 

Now, the goal was different. Go there. Avenge and save Hope at the same time. Nothing else. 

Nate keeps the bear the same way Wade keeps the skeeball token, it seems to him. That morning he looked at the odd thing, seeing the bullet (his bullet) embedded in it. It brought up the memories that didn’t technically exist, but were by no means faded from it. 

Nathan Summers was a stone cold killer, of this, he was certain. Had he shot Russell as he intended, there would have been no guilt, no remorse. He did his job and he did it well. Out of the two of them, he was positively the worst person. 

The guilt that struck him to see what he saw in that alternate time still surprises him. 

He writes down his best explanation for the whole mess. 

When Nate gets out of the shower, Wade is already up and bouncing around the apartment. 

“Wow, you never stay for breakfast. Is now a good time to propose? I don’t have a ring but I can offer you so much, baby.” 

Nate snorts. 

It’s true what he said, that Aliya was funny, but she wasn’t funny in the way Wade is. She did, as well, cope with the pain of their every day by being witty, but not with quite the same...spark. 

Nate’s not going to think too hard about what that could possibly mean. 

Wade makes coffee. Nate holds Hope’s teddy bear as Wade flicks the machine on. He feels Wade’s gaze on him. 

“You too, huh? We can’t both have a moment in the same 24 hours, you’re verging on my turf, dude.” 

Nate tucks it back on his belt. Unlike Wade with the token, he can’t stand to be apart from a reminder of his daughter. The safest place for it is with him. What that says about them, he has no idea. 

“Not a moment. It’s not the same.” 

“It is a bit of a moment,” Wade counters. “Because you were, you know, contemplating your daughter’s teddy bear that used to be all representative and now it’s not anymore because, you know, X-Force?”

“I don’t think the X-Force name counts for three people.” 

“Four! No, five! Colossus and the kid technically count. X-Force!” 

Nate rolls his eyes, watching Wade keep working before he receives a cup of coffee, black-adjacent, with a dash of cream he definitely saw Wade slip in because Wade thinks he’s not self indulgent enough. Nate takes it anyway. 

“Do you regret it?” 

“Fuck no,” Nate answers as he downs a ridiculous amount of coffee, because seriously, even in the future, caffeine is still a precious commodity. “Never will. Next question.” 

Wade pauses. “You never answered what Sharknado they’re on.” 

“They made a seventh one before Hollywood went under.” 

“I was hoping for a funnier number,” Wade admits. “Like Sharknado 23.” 

“Sorry to disappoint. They got to a 14th Rocky movie.” 

“No!” Wade gasps, clearly enjoying it anyway. “What do they do when Sylvester Stallone dies?” 

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out.” 

“Tease! Was it holograms? Blink twice if it was holograms!” 

Nate does not throw Wade a bone, as much as his companion’s excitement makes him want to. 

“Fine, I’ll find out out of spite, mark my fucking words.”

He absolutely will. Nate hides his smile by taking another drink of coffee. 

“Why’d you move away from the blue? I thought that was such a nice look on you in the comics. Real painted-on, me-oww.” 

Nate doesn’t understand half the things Wade says. And yet, by some odd reversal, they make him feel at home anyway. “Why would I wear blue? I admit it’s my favorite color, but-” 

“A-ha!” 

“Not very practical.” 

Wade puts one hand on his chest dramatically. “Oh, your sense of theatrics has been deadened by your long hard life in the future. Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll teach you how to make an entrance and look good doing it.” 

“I’m saved,” Nate deadpans, and Wade grins as he keeps chatting for the next few minutes, a comfortable buzz. Nate has to admit that there’s no one like Wade in the world he came from- and he thinks he likes it that way. Likes Wade, to be this way. 

“-so I got this job that I think would be better as a date, and Doms is busy anyway- you wanna buy me dinner, hot stuff?” 

Nate sighs fondly, putting down his mug. “I’ll consider it.” 

He already knows his answer, though. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: maggie-wittington (I take shortfic requests!) 
> 
> This fic actually had me worrying about my characterization again, so I guess that's actually- a good thing? Sort of? Who knows. Anyway, tear me apart in the comments.


End file.
